This is what happens to 35mm film that went bad

[starmike]

Many years ago, a friend of mine gave me this 35mm trailer of The Day the Earth Stood Still. It had this awful vinegar smell. It was so bad that when I first took it home it permeated the whole house. I had to put it in a container to keep the thing from smelling.

Here it is years later and I'm cleaning the house of things that I no longer want. The trailer was one of them. I opened it up for the first time and the film was so bad that it was literally crumbling, like leaves when you walk under them. You couldn't unravel the film from the spool, it was sticking to itself. I have other film stored that's still in pristine shape, but this was in bad shape when I got it, and this is the result.

Next time you hear about film restoration, I don't think there's anything anyone could have done for this. It was a gonner when I got it.